


Right When It's Right - Part II

by Persephone



Series: Willing to Take the Risk [5]
Category: Valentine's Day (2010)
Genre: American Football, Angst and Humor, Backstory, Bradley Cooper - Freeform, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Coming Out, Eric Dane - Freeform, Los Angeles, M/M, Rare Characters, Rare Pairing, Romance, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-02
Updated: 2012-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-30 12:11:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone/pseuds/Persephone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when the thing you fear most comes to pass?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sean, to be fair, was having a really difficult time of it.

Luckily for Sean, he had read up on how this time of year turned football players into ogres to most people in their lives. Still, it was astonishing to deal with.

So earpiece on, his breakfast kitchen a mess, he held onto his skillet and stared at his burning eggs while listening to Sean speak in a steady growl down the line.

Why couldn’t they meet up for a couple hours during the week for dinner? They didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to do, he wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t even _look_ at him like that if he didn’t want him to. They’d just talk, just see each other and not have this artificial pressure put on their relationship.

“There’d be no touching, I swear.”

His jaw almost hung open. Yeah, because Sean touching him against his will was the cause of all their problems.

“It’s not happening, Sean.”

“Come _on,_ I promise. It’s a lot more distracting not having you here.”

“That’s just your testosterone talking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re trying to manipulate the situation. If we got together we’d end up in bed for two days and you know it.”

“And what the hell is wrong with that? If they’re saying I have this… _problem_ —”

“A lot of pro athletes at your level have it. I looked it up. It’s not just you.”

“I told you, those guys are out partying with models and rock stars every night. With us, it’s just you and me.”

_…and your body, and my fantasies, and your intense desire to do whatever it takes to please me sexually, not to mention my—_

“Holden,” Sean groaned, and he shivered, the sound so unexpectedly delicious at 7:45 in the morning. He set aside the pan and pushed his hair back, breathing slowly through his mouth and taking a moment to get a handle on the sensations. _Don’t say yes, don’t say yes._

“Holden, I can do this,” Sean said seductively, so convincingly. “I did it while we were dating and believe me I didn’t want you any less then. All right, so not even dinner. Let’s just meet up for lunch. I’ll drive up to L.A. no problem. How ‘bout that, sweetheart?”

“I’d love to,” he said weakly, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Is that a yes?”

Sean was on roll. The last two games had been wins for the Chargers and Sean was apparently chasing some NFL record for…something.

 _Pass completions in a game,_ he recalled. _The commentators were stunned that he had almost tied a twenty-year record within a matter of two quarters. They’re talking MVP if he keeps it up._

“Sweetheart?”

“That’s a no,” he said gently.

~*~

It wasn’t pretty.

After failing at trying to get him into a lunch or dinner, Sean went for broke, bringing up his family and the sacredness of the upcoming holidays. Though he himself didn’t care much for family get togethers, he knew how important Sean’s family was to him and how delicate the matter was. Here, no one had to tell him to tread delicately. 

“How ‘bout we plan for the important stuff, then? In a couple of weeks it’ll be Thanksgiving and we’ll get together then. You’ll meet my family, we’ll— you’ll be around my family so nothing’ll happen.”

“Paula said I can’t.”

The valet suddenly appeared before him. Startled, he looked up, needing a moment to figure out why the man was staring at him with his hand up-turned. Then he remembered and handed him his ticket. He turned his attention back to his phone call. Sean had gone deathly silent.

“What’d— What?” Sean asked, softly. “What do you mean, Paula said you can’t?”

“She said it’s one of the biggest football days of the year and if we get together, what with all the feasting and…um,” he licked his lip, “things, that there was no way we wouldn’t do, quote, whatever it is we do that makes you so useless on the field. End quote.” He grimaced, hoping for the best. Paula lacked subtlety and unfortunately so did he, and he didn’t know how else to put this. “I told her I would pass along the message.”

Sean seemed to have lost the ability to speak. 

Standing on the corner of Sherwood Drive and La Cienega, he made sure to stay on the pavement and watch for cars pulling in and out of the narrow driveways on either side of him. Though his dinner at the Belmont had ended a while ago, he had delayed getting his car as he couldn’t imagine having this conversation while driving. 

“She can’t do that,” Sean finally said, sounding astounded. “And you can’t seriously be paying any attention to her.”

“I am though.”

Had he any doubts, he would have considered negotiating with Paula despite her being one of the most demanding people he had ever met. She certainly hadn’t minced words when she had called him that Monday after The Day. But she was demanding of all the rights things when it came to Sean, and on that front, he was squarely on her side.

“Sean, this is just too important. Are you hearing what they’re saying about you out there? They’re saying you’re on track to make MVP.”

“I getting screwed when they’re saying I’m fucking up… _and_ I’m getting screwed when they say I’m doing all right. Does that make sense to anyone?”

But there was more of course. 

He waited for Sean to grasp the enormity of the situation. 

“So wait, does this mean that _Christmas_ is off too?”

He pressed a hand to his eyes, almost having a heart attack as the valet came flying around the corner, coming to a fast break in front of him in his car.

~*~

Then after that it was the sex part. The part that had him wondering whether there was a medal waiting for him at the end of all this. He pressed his head against the warm glass of the living room window seat. It was raining outside.

“We could have phone sex,” he offered softly.

“I don’t _want_ to have phone sex,” Sean said tightly. Sean didn’t really seem to go for that… 

“It’s not just about the sex, Holden,” Sean said, his tone pleading for understanding. “It’s not like that for me. For me it’s— I want to _be_ with you.”

And it just hurt more and more.

He could hear the noise of the locker room in background. Sean was back in Philadelphia. 

Philadelphia… 

In Philadelphia they would have stayed at The Rittenhouse. Private, intimate. He would have tried to get Sean in for a late dinner but failing that he would have had room service show up and around 2am, right when he became ravenous. Sexually it would have been…maybe giving each other handjobs, while saying what they they feeling, each watching the other fall apart…

He closed his mouth, hit the mute button and let out a breath. 

“Sweetheart,” Sean said softly. “It’s _ten more weeks._ Couldn’t I just hold you one last time before we have to say goodbye?”

He rubbed his forehead. “We’re not saying goodbye.”

“I know, I know…”

~*~

He pushed his head against his locker door and kept it there. 

Twenty-seven minutes until game time.

The guys were each in their own way getting mentally ready for the game. Some were listening to music on their iPods, some were pounding and head-butting each other, some texting and some reading, and still others making phone calls to loved ones.

He was in the latter category. But as he kept his voice directed into the privacy of his locker, while Holden’s soothing tones filtered through the line, he wasn’t sure how frustration was supposed to be helping his game.

God help him, had he once thought he’d find it _cute_ if Holden ever decided to withhold sex for some reason? Fuck, he must have been in one hell of a good place.

~*~

The sad thing was, if he was honest with himself, the only thing keeping him from saying to hell with it and going back to meeting Sean on the road was the depth of Sean’s own aggravation.

Ten months ago he couldn’t have fathomed putting up with any of it. There wouldn’t have seemed a man alive worth the trouble. But now, as he listened to Sean’s upset tones night after night, he was actually unable to get upset. Sean’s domineering attempts, scarily, sounded like love serenades to him. 

It made him wonder whether he had lost his mind.

As he listened to Sean speak, he felt like one of those flowers unfurling in a time lapse film. It was bizarre but true. Like something inside him was coming awake, resilience or a new form of self-control. Aloud he encouraged Sean to focus on the next game, but inside he held onto the words and silently begged Sean to never stop rejecting it, to never stop being upset over the unfortunate circumstance that had broken them up when they were just getting to truly discover each other. But it was slow, and it was exhausting, and sometimes he just couldn’t do it. And on days like this he was just numb.

He was at a lunch meeting in Lower Manhattan. He had been looking forward to it because he liked being in New York City, but within a few minutes his attention had begun wandering. He struggled to keep his focus on the subject at hand. 

The drink of choice around the table was Grey Goose tonics, but he was studiously sticking to water, claiming a slight sore throat. Because although he was starting to get the feeling of wanting a shot of something really hard, immediately, that would dull the edge of his need, by Christ he wasn’t going there. Halfheartedly he picked up his water and took an equally detached sip, then gratefully set it back down when the waiter arrived for their orders. 

As soon as they ordered business could start, and he could count on a couple of hours of total immersion in something other than his unbearable longing for Sean Jackson.

~*~

He jiggled the keycard a few more times in the slot and, yup, still got a red light. The light flashed at him tauntingly. He frowned and turned the card over. 

He could never understand it. He entered hotel rooms countless times a month and he still couldn’t get the hang of opening these doors. Each time he was able to get in it was really just pure luck.

“Those really are very tricky.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the voice, which was very close, and was only mildly startled to see the senior vice president of the investment firm with whom he had just concluded lunch. The meeting had gone well enough, the departing sentiment being that their firms would continued business over the phones. 

But he took in the investment banker’s stance, and then his smile, and looked down at the floor.

“D’you mind?” the banker said, reaching for his card. He was tall, good looking and confident; pure New York.

He held onto the key. The banker flicked his fingers questioningly, his eyes pinned on him. He was asking two questions at once, the one with his fingers, about the key, and the more intimate one with his eyes, about his entry. His smile stayed frictionlessly intact.

“I, ah, asked around,” the banker quickly added, still with the smile. “I’m with someone as well. So…it’s okay.”

“Oh, good, great,” he said amiably. Then he heard himself and quickly shook his head. “I mean, no. What I mean is, I’m happy for you, that you’re with someone. He must be very nice.” Oh, lord. “Your— guy. But I can’t.”

“You mean you _won’t,_ ” the banker said smoothly, grinning infectiously now. And it _was_ an infectious grin, one he clearly knew how to wield.

“You’re kind of irresistible you know,” he added, lowering his voice. He moved in closer, until they could feel each other right up against the door. “D’you know that? Does he tell you that?”

“I have an early morning. Thanks for the offer—” he cringed at the inappropriate words, and somehow got the card in and out and watched the green light flash. “Have a great night. By- by yourself.”

He had slipped inside the room and closed the door behind him before the banker could get in another word. 

He remained at the door and automatically glanced at the bed. 

His head, his heart, his cock kicked into high gear. _Oh, Sean, please don’t call me tonight._

He checked his watch. He had friends in the City and had meant to stay overnight and catch the morning flight back to L.A. But he now faced the fact that they were the type of friends you kept when you were single and staying overnight on a business trip. Calling them only meant one thing. 

And though he was pretty sure that sticking dollar bills into D&G briefs didn’t amount to cheating, it wasn’t a notion he was willing to put to the test right now. Not until after at least years of Sean owing him big time for his own misbehaviors. He was pretty sure Sean _could_ misbehave at some point.

But for now he headed into the bathroom and began packing up.

~*~

“So how come _you’re_ not affected by any of this?”

He buttoned his jacket, adjusted his earpiece a little tighter—perhaps he hadn’t heard right—and shoved his hands into his pockets.

He had temporarily left a dinner party at which his father’s eyes had hawkishly watched him see the caller and excuse himself, and was now standing in a Hudson River School adorned, cherrywood library. The muted sounds of the party, reminding him of his obligations, filtered quietly in.

“Holden?”

“Who says I’m not?”

“Well, you don’t sound—” Sean stopped, clearly checking himself.

He waited.

“You don’t _sound_ like you are,” Sean concluded defiantly.

“I just try not to think about it.”

“Oh, is that what you’re doing? Trying not to think of me?”

He gave it a moment. In fact he gave it several, because he thought he might have finally hit his limit.

“Holden…” Sean said hoarsely.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, keeping his voice just this side of cold, “yes. That’s exactly what I do. I wake up in the morning trying not to think of you. I shower, get into my car and drive to work trying not to think of you. And then I sit in meetings, like a fucking airhead, trying not to think of you. Do you know what that’s like? And then the day ends, and I count off one less day before I can stop having to think of you. So yeah, if you want to know. That’s all what I do. Is that what you wanted to hear? Does that somehow make you happy?”

He heard a quiet sound from the other end. Something that were it not for the possible interference of high-spirited laughter from the other room, he might have suspiciously called a whimper. 

Sean started saying something, then stopped as his voice was coming out too rough. 

He waited.

“I’m sorry, Holden,” he finally whispered.

“Don’t apologize, Sean. We’re both in a bad place. We’re just…handling it differently that’s all. Look, I know you’re probably in the middle of your evening sessions with the coaches. Call me later tonight?”

“I’ll do that,” Sean said softly.

~*~

At a quarter to eleven he was woken up by his phone buzzing violently under him. Shuffling across his scattered papers and tangled bedsheets, he found the chunk of vibrating plastic wedged into his side and pulled it out. 

He rubbed his eyes and stared first at his nightstand clock, then at the name on the caller ID. When the hell was he going to get it together and get a special ringtone for Sean? He brought it to his ear. “Hey,” he said, clearing his throat. “Gimme a minute,” then searched around for his earpiece. At last he found it, sighed and turned onto his back, his eyes still closed, and hooked it to his ear. How he wished he could be coordinated.

Sean was chuckling softly. _Ah,_ well, this was a sound he could deal with. Eyes closed, he sank into a darkness comprised only of the sensual tones of Sean’s voice. He guessed it was going to be a conversation very different in tone from their previous one. They should probably conduct all their conversations lying down.

“You all set?” Sean asked softly.

“You bet.”

Sean apologized again for his attitude that afternoon, then for his whole attitude the entire time since their separation. He said he knew even when he was doing it that he was being selfish, and he apologized with all his heart for his behavior. 

“It’s as if I’ve been over here the entire time, and some other person had taken over.”

It hadn’t felt that way to him at all. Sean had always been very emotional, whether he chose to act on it or not.

“But sweetheart, and I’m not trying to make excuses, but it hurts so much to be without you. I didn’t think anything could hurt like this.”

“So how’re you coping, really?”

“Do you have to ask?”

“You’re doing great out there, though. Everyone’s going crazy over you.”

“I feel great out there. Just not inside. But I’ll cope though. I’m a big boy.”

His heart was going crazy. “You still don’t think we should Skype?” he asked, trying to help.

“Uh-uh, no way,” Sean immediately replied in a rough voice.

He let it be. He could follow Sean’s logic, as without question it would quickly devolve into a sex video. He got dry-mouthed thinking about that thing Sean had that looked like a giant flashlight with a big silicone hole in it that Sean could use so adeptly. He wouldn’t have minded having the video of that, expect that Sean was sure it would somehow end up on the internet and find its way to viral stardom from there.

“Then can you hold out a little bit longer?” he asked gently, a little teasingly. “Can you do that for me?”

“I’d do anything for you.”

“My hero.”

Sean sighed.

He opened his eyes, staring unseeingly at the white ceiling. He was used to making things happen to resolve situations. But with his own relationship he was lying in a state of helplessness foreign to him. “Well,” he said, feeling as though he was being tugged in many directions. “I should probably let you go.”

“Yeah. Hey, I think you should know, by the way. I bought a bottle of your shower gel.”

He frowned in surprise. “What, the Bulgari?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? I thought you said it made me smell like I got paid by the hour.”

“It does.”

He laughed. “Then why do you have it? You’re not going to send it to me, are you? Keep me smelling the way you like?”

“Nah, not planning on sending it.”

He laughed again, involuntarily looking toward his bathroom. “Then what? What are you doing with it?”

“Well,” Sean said, his voice warm and heavy. “Every morning I get into the shower, and I open it up. I take a long, deep whiff of my honey’s sweet smell… Get some of that good stuff all the fucking way inside me—”

He shook his head, suppressing his laughter. “You’re so gross…”

“And then I just stand there loving that feeling for a while…”

“Aww.”

“And then when I’m done with that I pour it all over my co—”

“You do not.”

“Heck, yeah, I do.”

He started laughing and couldn’t stop. Sean was laughing as well. “Not even kidding. Every morning. It’s a great way to wake up.”

But as he listened he could hear that Sean was laughing with effort, as if putting his mind to doing it, and it simply broke his heart.

“I love you, Holden,” he said sadly.

“I feel the same way about you, Sean. I always have.”

“G’night, sweetheart.”

They disconnected and sleep wouldn’t come. He wanted to make it things easier and for once he didn’t know how.

~*~

There was less of a crush than he would have imagined. 

The quarterback coach, who it turned out was indeed a real friend to Sean, had told him it would be like this, perfect for spouses who wanted to get in some quick alone time away from the press.

He kept his eyes on the players, reporters, and assistant coaches flowing in from the stadium into the entrances leading to the locker rooms. The noise of the stadium was unbelievable from here, totally different from hearing it on television or even from an elevated box. It was a Denver game and the Chargers had once again won. Whatever the crowd up top was feeling, they were definitely letting it be known. 

Sean appeared, at last, in the dark passageway. He was among a last batch of players pushing along amidst a sea of reporters.

He raised his hand as Sean looked up. Sean stared.

He looked as though was seeing an apparition. 

The group around him fell away, and Sean wandered over just as hesitantly. When they were standing close enough Sean took his arm, gripping him, while his light eyes roamed his face in the wintry afternoon light. He blinked as if to make sure.

He smiled and stood still.

He didn’t want to be in New York or anywhere else, with anyone else, ever. He wanted to be right here.

But he’d had made a pact with himself that he would only show up if it had been a win and only stay five minutes. His five minutes were running.

Glancing behind him to make sure the spot he had staked out was still secure, clear of any spectators in any sense of the word, he pulled Sean to one corner.

Sean dropped his helmet and pulled loose his padding, his expression frozen, as if moving too fast would burst his dream. He sucked in his breath as Sean came closer, pushing him up against the scaffolding, locking his arms around him under his jacket. 

And then Sean was shaking his head. “Holden?” 

Sean asked it as if wanting to make sure he wasn’t about to make out with someone else’s boyfriend. He laughed and placed a finger to his lips, then fisted the front of Sean’s jersey. 

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he whispered, when Sean lowered his head. “So make this count.”

Sean did.

Sean kissed him all over his face until he was sure he was coming in a long, wet stream down his leg. He was shaking like a starving man. And then Sean finally got to his mouth and, quite literally, ate him up. 

~*~

That was how he spent his November. 

And after that, Sean went back to work.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

Yeah. So he had almost screwed it up.

He was having to shave slowly, because out of shame, he was avoiding looking at himself in the mirror. A little tricky.

What a dickhead he had been. Due to his own insecurities about this time of year, about Holden being in L.A. and him not being there, he had almost crossed the line. 

What the hell had he given Holden a ring for, then, if all he could do was harass the guy the moment their lives weren’t intersecting on a daily basis? If he wasn’t comfortable with Holden all by himself, then why was he marrying him?

He ran the water, tapped the stick against the sink, resumed shaving. Heck, it wasn’t that he didn’t trust Holden. In fact he _wished_ that was the problem. 

_Jackson, you’re a decent guy._ He could almost hear his best childhood friend, Davey, saying it. _But you gotta ease up. You won the matchup. Y’get me?_

Yeah. He got it.

He finished in the bathroom, got dressed and headed out the door.

Outside, he kept his sunglasses high and tight on his face and kept his head down. 

Media vans that had camped around the block since he came back for the season were snoozing incognito for the time being. They’d put up internet images of Holden coming out of his townhouse earlier in the season and had mentioned a couple of things about Holden’s stayovers. But he knew and they knew that no one really cared about that. What they were waiting for was dirt.

Any male who went in and stayed longer than a couple of hours was game. He’d even had a guy show up once who was so obviously from a tabloid that after a couple of words out of the guy’s mouth he had raised an eyebrow and said, “You’re kidding me, right?”. The guy had had the decency to look sheepish and insist that you couldn’t blame a guy for trying.

So as he climbed into his Navigator in the spectacular San Diego December sunlight, he reminded himself that there was still a lot of pressure and he still had a lot of work to do. He couldn’t lose focus on bogeys. He was Sean Jackson, quarterback for the San Diego Chargers, and he could handle anything that was thrown his way.

~*~

With Holden not coming down as he used to, his townhouse had become an escape for baby Chargers, frustrated, and experiencing their first career pressures. Away from their families for the first time, most of them were just looking for a place to play video games on Tuesdays afternoons. It was especially rough this year because a bunch of them, himself included, had chosen not to go home for Thanksgiving.

He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t traveled for the Thanksgiving game. Maybe his rookie year itself, when he had been so nervous as starting quarterback he had neither eaten nor slept for six months. But by tradition he’d get tickets and his mom, his pop, his sister and her spouse would show up wherever it was being played and party with him and his fellow players. But he just couldn’t make himself do it this year. Too many things on his mind. For the umpteenth time, he regretted not having journaled his thoughts before the season.

But it was all good. He was hosting the team this year, and it was as good a time and place as any for keeping up their team camaraderie. Besides, he liked cooking and keeping house after the rookies, and even liked being made fun of by the vets who showed up. What the hell did they know about family. 

It was just such a conversation he was having to deal with while checking the second turkey of the night in the oven. The house was crowded, already a mess and Thanksgiving games hadn’t even started. The rookies were still only playing Madden NFL on the Xbox, hooked up to a 70 inch flatscreen he never used. 

He filled turkey stuffing in a bowl and passed it to Hiddiger, one of their defensive players, who took it and passed it along to one of the kids who ran into the kitchen for more.

“You know,” Hiddiger, broad and mostly full of shit, was saying to him with a grin. “Us vets were only a _little_ surprised when you said that you were gay, Sean.” Hiddiger waved around the messy counter. “Cause you know, only a gay dude would want to do any of this.”

The rookies in the living room let out a collective howl of despair. Someone had just scored a touchdown. He looked at Hidigger. “You don’t know a lot of gay men do you?”

Hidigger grinned and shrugged. He picked up serving plates, Hidigger followed suit, and they went into the dining room. From there, as they laid the table, he looked into the living room where the digital version of one of their teammates was doing a touchdown dance. It was the only game the rookies or vets ever really wanted to play, especially since a couple of them had made it into the newest version. And someone was playing him. Badly.

Just then a grey hunk of gym equipment, thankfully not too large, came crashing down the stairs. Resigned, he watched it thunk down in slow tumbles, undoubtably cracking the wood. Two not-such-rookies, both two years on the team, peeked down from the top stair, eyes wide, hands over their mouths in horror. They retreated and began shrieking with laughter.

“That’s coming out of your paychecks, boys,” he called up.

He finished at the table, thanked Hiddiger who was yelling up to the rookies that they were going to be paying for steaks for the rest of the season, and went into the living room to collapse on the sofa. Vance made room for him. He looked at the mess in the living room, rookies sprawled all over the place, junk and open video games boxes all over the floor, remnants of food everywhere. He’d asked for it.

“Hey, Sean, we’re really sorry, man,” one of the perps called down from the top of the stairs, and sounded a little bit so. “And there’s uh— I think we broke your… What’d you call that, a guard rail?” The other one snorted. Both men started laughing uncontrollably.

“Jesus Christ,” Vance muttered beside him.

He picked up a platter of celery sticks and placed it on his stomach, put his legs on the coffee table and ignored all of it.

He’d paid a million bucks for the place and had spent six years going from shower to his car, taking in arresting glimpses of the water only when he could spare the time. He knew his neighbors only by their cars, never by their names, and barely by their faces. Half the time he didn’t even know whether the homes on either side of him were occupied. 

The place had been nothing more than his own personal bed and breakfast for six years with the closest it ever came to feeling like home being when he did this. This and when he had woken up in the middle of the night to hear Holden on a midnight raid in his kitchen. This was good, and the other he no longer had. So… 

“Hey, where’s the guy?”

He turned and looked at Vance, who had suddenly asked it. Vance stared back at him, shrugging questioningly. He realized he was probably staring a little too hard. He looked back at his veggies.

“He’s in L.A.,” he said vaguely.

Vance went back to watching the rookies dream big on the Xbox. Then he turned slightly and said, “You good?”

He pushed his celery around a bit.

“Yeah,” he said, just as vaguely.

~*~

“Six-foot-two, two hundred and twenty-five pounds—” Petey blinked from reading the stats off his phone. “Oh my God, that’s delicious—three hundred and eighty-two passing yards per game with zero interceptions, and a seventy-five long season at a PCT of sixty-eight point two.” Petey’s eyes continued to skim the rest of the screen. “What does this shit mean?”

“It means,” Elliot said, waving over a server. “That Holden’s man is doing phenomenally.” A well stacked tray of martinis floated to a stand before them. Elliot and Petey picked one up each. He reached for one, stealing a peek at Elliot who wasn’t looking in his direction. 

He was _not_ about to do phenomenally.

He could feel it coming like a dark storm.

He took a sip of the brown liquid and breathed as the rich taste of chocolate filled his mouth. Quickly, he waved back the departing server. She returned and smiled graciously at him. Thanking her, he picked up a second glass and waited for her to move off before draining the first and placing it at the base of a stone sculpture. Elliot gave him a startled look. He didn’t look back.

By agreement he and Sean, still talking whenever they could manage, kept whatever frustrations they were feeling out of their conversations. They were only allowed to tell each other about their day, just as if they were still in Malibu living the good life.

The result was that when he hung up he felt like he had been desperately trying to pick up a guy for whom he had fallen badly, but for reasons he couldnt understand wouldn’t respond to any of his advances, and who he, inexplicably, could not get over. 

If Elliot was as astute a lawyer as he thought he was, he could surely see a train wreck coming.

“Make sure I get some water, would you?” he murmured to Elliot, still studiously avoiding his eye. “And…that I get home safe.” 

Elliot’s expression became more startled.

And that was how his problems began.

~*~

They were in a lounge full of the right amount of “right” people, bodies whose sole occupation was to look good and pad guest lists, around whom the people with money and not much else going for them hovered, and he was fucking wasted. 

It all balanced out for everyone. Everyone was getting exactly what they wanted. Everyone except him.

Sitting on one of the long sectionals, he shoved his hair out of his face and stared into the blurry dimness of the room. The blurriness was being caused by his inebriated state.

He could count the number of times he’d been drunk since business school, and in under a month he had shattered that record. 

Aside from drinking, however, he hadn’t moved much since their arrival. Craig and Petey were on the other side of the lounge, on the prowl, and Elliot was babysitting him. He had officially become one of _those_ friends. Married, and retired, and boring as hell.

In all the years he had spent effortlessly picking up men, he had never been out and never done it. Now, he wondered whether his friends were cool enough to make Sean appear in the middle of the crowd somehow, like the first time he had seen him. Unexpected, so sweet and shy, and way the hell too good to be true.

He pushed his hair back again, trying to get it to stay off his face. It was that swatch in front that never acted right outside of the workday. He really ought to get a haircut. 

Then he remembered that Sean liked it. A lot. He grimaced and told himself not to think about it. The way Sean’s eyes would move, focusing while on his back looking up at it. And then the way he would push his hand into it and leave it buried there… while… the rest of him… demanded attention… 

He leaned to one side and stifled his groan. Picking up his drink, he found that it was gone.

“I’ll right back,” Elliot said beside him, pushing up. 

“Get me another one? Belvedere on ice,” he said, lifted up his glass.

“Nooo,” Elliot intoned firmly, taking the glass from him. He deposited it back on the side table. “No more vodka for you. I’ll be returning with some water.” 

He sank back into on the settee, resigning himself to this thoughts, and instantly a body came down beside him, taking up the space that Elliot had vacated. A warm, drawn out, “Hey,” was suddenly being breathed into the side of his face, and he turned to see foggily very little, and breathed a “Hey” back. A hand was suddenly on his knee, a body turning, leaning closer, and then he was being whispered to, hot and fast. “I wanna—” and then suddenly Elliot was there.

“Get up. Move along.”

He looked around, confused. Elliot was standing before them, waving his fingers.

“S-sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Yeah, no problem.”

He felt scrambling. The man was struggling up, and was gone.

“Wow,” he said, raising his eyebrows, nodding blearily as Elliot sat down beside him. “That was—” He blew out a breath, shaking his head.

“Holden, you have an erection.”

“I know. I know.”

~*~

“Holden, don’t _move._ ”

They had been inside a hotel for a thing and he had not managed to make it through half the evening. Why did he keep feeling that he and Sean had broken up instead of just being separated for a short while?

“You’re a miserable drunk, you know that?” Elliot was saying, tugging on parts of his clothing and trying to straighten him out. “You’re one of those people who shouldn’t get drunk because all you do is turn into a cheap, drunken tramp.”

“I miss him so _much._ I can’t even— Uuuugh.” He groaned slowly, pressing his head into the wall while Elliot pulled and prodded at him. “This is going to be bad in the morning.”

“Yes it will be. And you would have deserved it. I told you for years not to mess around with those bad boys and you never listened. Now look where it’s gotten you. Pregnant and alone.”

He patted his pockets. “Is my wallet…”

“It’s there, sweetie. But here, why don’t we get you inside before hotel security mistakes you for a streetwalker.”

He turned to Elliot, looking into his friend’s sympathetic brown eyes, without the strength to move. “He calls me that, you know… Sweetheart. Did I tell you that?”

“You didn’t tell anyone anything.”

He nodded, glancing at a couple who had moved close to them while waiting for their car and who had started sucking each other’s faces. He looked back at Elliot. “And the sad fact is that it’s not even a word I could have used with a straight face. But he says, “Hey, sweetheart,” like it’s the most sacred thing in the world to him and my heart just—” He pressed his lips, shook his head. “He was so good to me for so many years, and I was so bad to him, Elliot.”

“I’m sure you didn’t mean it.”

“I meant it. Then. And he just kept coming back. He’s like a boy on his first date who just so wants to get it right. He’s like this big, adorable— _puppy_ that just wants to be loved.” He turned and looked at the couple again. They had their hands up each other’s clothing. “You know he likes candles?” he asked Elliot, turning to look sadly at him. Elliot shook his head. He nodded. “Candles…and flowers… and moonlight walks on the beach. I’m not making it up. He wears his heart on his sleeve and he blushes when I tell him he’s hot. Can you believe that? And in the mornings he lets me rub all over him so I can wake up without feeling like I’m being run over by a bus. He’d just stand there and let me do it like he had nothing better to do. I mean, who does that?”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be tough…”

“And at night, when I can’t get to sleep, he kisses all over my back to help me fall asleep.”

Elliot smiled. “Is this before or after he fucks you in his football jersey?”

He sighed. “I didn't want to tell this to anyone, but I spent two hours bidding for his gloves in that breast cancer pink items auction thing they had last month.”

“Now I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He waved a hand. “The hats were cuter. But he wore gloves, so now I have a pair of pink pro football gloves I’m not really sure what to do with.”

“How much did you spend?” Elliot asked amusedly. 

He didn’t feeling entertaining. “I spent three years trying not to think about him, Elliot,” he said, staring miserably down at his boots. “I hated the way he would come back from his football season and I would just go right back there like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t had a life when he was gone.” He rubbed his forehead, feeling tears. “He spent all these years looking for love and all I did was tease him with it. I want so much to give him my love… so much… I want to take care of him.”

“You’ll get your chance, sweetie.” 

He nodded, glancing over. “He thinks I’m beautiful,” he said softly. “No one’s ever told me they thought I was beautiful…”

“You are beautiful.”

“They say, oh you’re so lucky you’re Alastair Wilson’s son. What must it have been like to grow up in a _mansion_ and have _servants_ and get everything you ever wanted? What the hell do people know about what other people want? I want a fucking _football player._ How’s that for—” He stopped. His phone was vibrating somewhere on him. 

Before he could wonder where, Elliot had reached inside his jacket and had withdrawn it. Elliot looked at the caller, then extended it in his direction.

“It’s moonlight walks on the beach.”

He blinked, feeling a swell of alcohol in his chest. He vigorously shook his head.

Elliot pulled the phone back toward him. “Decline and send it to voicemail?”

“Oh, God, no,” he whispered.

“Well, _I_ can’t answer it,” Elliot said, placidly. “He’ll think you have someone staying over. But don’t speak long. You’ll sound crazy.”

He nodded and took the phone.

“Hi, Sean,” he said softly. 

“Hey, sweetheart.”

He closed his eyes as the warm words flowed over him. _Come home now. Let’s get married and move to Hawaii._

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Uh, yeah, actually,” he said, his voice no more than a rasp. “You kinda did.”

He tried to pretend he didn’t catch a skipped note.

“Holden, are you okay?” Sean slowly asked.

“Yeah, I— uh, just had a—little too much to drink. I shouldn’t have— uh—” Elliot was making a face at him. Yes, even he knew this conversation did not sound good. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Sure,” Sean said, sounding opposite. “Call me. I miss you.”

He disconnected with his eyes shut. Elliot took the phone from him.

“You handled it well,” Elliot said, shoving the phone back into his jacket. “And…you’re slipping. Keep your hands on me, Holden. Don’t take your hands off me— Holden! Oh, thank God. The cab is here. Come on, _beautiful._ Your carriage awaits.”

~*~

Half a day later he lay flat on his back, and, from behind his sunglasses, stared up at clear tropical skies.

Sean would have loved this place.

Forty-eight hours to detox. And to wonder why being in love meant no longer being able to get on with your own life.

Maybe Sean would have the answers when he got back from the season.

He smiled, closing his eyes, and faded into sleep.

~*~


	3. Chapter 3

He laid flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

Every night he had called Holden, Holden had been drunk.

He was either out at a party, having drinks with his friends, at a dinner or a fundraiser. He hadn’t really even known Holden to drink. And in August he didn’t remember calling once and thinking that Holden had been drinking. It certainly didn’t sound like Holden was having a hard time being separated from him.

Turning, he stared at the dark, empty space in bed beside him. 

He was being unfair. It was at a party that he’d met Holden, and he had known from day one that a majority of Holden’s work involved networking. Time was, he had been grateful that Holden wasn’t one of those men who insisted on showcasing their specialty boyfriends, for whatever reason, and at any given opportunity. 

He had liked that Holden had let him be a homebody to his heart’s content. It wasn’t right that he should turn around now and complain.

He listened to the sound of waves on the shore, the silence and the soft surf of the Pacific. 

He missed his lover. That was all. 

He wanted to feel love, and sexual attraction, and feel it in that way that only his guy could make it happen.

That was all.

He reached over on the nightstand and picked up his alarm clock, turning it toward him. It was one a.m. Time to go to sleep.

He redeposited the clock and closed his eyes and soon went to sleep.

~*~

It was now December.

And according to his weather app, it was cold in L.A. Most of the city would be hibernating, especially since it was the Christmas season and most people would have gone home to their home states.

Holden would be, as ever, busy working. Busier probably, because so many charities had functions during the holiday season.

They spoke less often now, but that wasn’t either of their faults, and, he told himself, certainly not because _he_ wasn’t calling as often. He just understood that Holden was busy, working.

He blew warm breaths into his gloved hands still waiting for the Fox Sports crew to finish setting up their lights. He hoped to God this would be fast. They were winding down to the playoffs, they still hadn’t lost a game, and he was hot to get back in the training rooms.

“Sean, we’re gonna need you over here.”

He nodded at the reporter, moving to stand where he had been told. And then he noticed that even after he’d properly positioned himself, the reporter’s hand hadn’t dropped from his waist. The guy was still talking to the crew, so he gave it a second. Then he threw the guy a quick look.

Yeah, it was a come-on. He prepared himself for the inevitable visitation later that night in his hotel room.

He had never actually kept count during the previous seasons, but the knocks on his door this year seemed to be setting a record. A by-product of his coming out. It got a little easier in the postseason when team security didn’t allow anyone up to their floors, but for now it was still a free-for-all, a game too many of the players, peripherals and even some of the coaches were willing to play.

He stopped making eye contact with the reporter, who was desperately trying to achieve just that. It was up to him to say a polite no thanks, and he didn’t feel one way or another about it. Some guys were ruthless and singleminded and didn’t take the rejections kindly. Others were perfectly nice about it.

This guy was perfectly nice about it when he eventually smiled, discreetly peeled the fingers glued to his waist, and waited for the cameraman to signal that the tape was ready to roll.

~*~

It was as he was leaving their training facility one evening that he ran into one of their corner backs.

Marcellus was a young player, two years in from Texas A&N, and hadn’t been there for his Thanksgiving dinner. He’d heard the kid had gone home. 

And oddly he had just overheard one of the medical assistants talking to the defensive coach about Marcellus. When Marcellus passed him by putting his head down and muttering a hesitant hello, he stopped him with a hand to his arm. 

Marcellus stopped and looked up at him. His eyes briefly held, then the kid looked away. He looked ragged.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Marcellus shook his head, dropping it. “Not much. Getting fined.”

“Again?” After suffering a preseason injury that had allowed him to continue playing, Marcellus was required to make regular physical therapy sessions, which he knew the kid wasn’t. He seemed to be having a difficult time of simply doing what was best for him, not to mention per his contract.

Marcellus shrugged tiredly to his question, then slanted him a look. “You probably wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

He waited as Marcellus gave him another look and reluctantly took a breath. “Listen, Sean, man, it’s different for you. You always got your shit together and things just always work out for you.”

“What?” he asked, before he could catch himself. “What the hell are you talking about?

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” he said emphatically, frowning. “I don’t. We all got problems. Mine are just different from yours is all.”

Marcellus looked at him, holding his gaze for a moment. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sean, man, my girl is sleeping with another dude.”

“What?” he said slowly, this time in a very different tone.

“Yeah. We’ve been together six years, and she never once—” The kid rubbed his forehead. “We were together through college, through her going to law school.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he said, memories of their conversations coming to him. “She’s in San Antonio, right? Working at a law firm.”

“Yeah.”

He took a good look at the kid. Marcellus was young, twenty-six years old, his career still ahead of him and still full of promise. That fact, while he stood there staring and trying not to get distracted by his own flashing thoughts, was all he had to offer him.

He took him by the shoulder. “Listen to me, Marcellus.” And Marcellus looked at him. “Go take care of your injuries. That part you can do without thinking about. And you don’t want these people coming down on you. The rest…” he looked directly into the kid’s eyes. “The rest’ll take care of itself.”

Marcellus held his eyes for a bit, then lowered them. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means it’ll be okay. You’ll figure it out.” He squeezed his shoulder. “It _always_ works out.”

Marcellus looked doubtful for moment, then he nodded. “Thanks,” and wandered off.

He gripped the shoulder strap to his duffle and watched Marcellus go, telling himself he had said the right things. Marcellus _would_ figure it out. Six years had to count for something. He checked his watch and started for the exit once more. He was running late for his dinner with the coaches.

~*~

“You hear about Marcellus and his girl?” asked James, another of their defensive linesman.

“Yeah,” Hidigger said, chuckling. “Tell him to join to club.”

He kept his attention in the inside his locker, hooking up his pads, paying no attention to the two men. It was a typical conversation that took place on a daily basis in the locker rooms. If it wasn’t someone else being gossiped about, you could be sure it was you when you weren’t around.

“The part that surprises me, though,” James continued, his blue eyes lit up, just not knowing when to shut it. “Is that he’s _surprised._ All this time, sitting in this locker room listening to us old folks talk about the shit that’s in store for them when they get home, and he’s surprised. And he ain’t really even a rookie.”

Hidigger shrugged. “He thought she was special.”

“At some point, in your fifteen-plus year career in the NFL,” someone said from the other side of the room, as if imparting the highest kind of wisdom, “your marriage is going to catch some hell. Fuck, people who go home _every night_ to their wives still get cheated on.” 

James turned to him. “So, hey, Sean, is it different in the gay community?”

Hiddiger found this hysterical and almost fell over laughing.

He held up his hands, moving away from his locker. “You can feel free to talk smack about me guys, but only after I’m gone.”

A few of the other guys rolled their eyes and shook their heads, equally tired of having to hear other people’s business day in day out. He waved goodbye and left the room, exiting the facility with a slightly hurried pace.

It was in his car that stopped and took a really deep breath.

No one really cared about gossip, and in the end it was just a means to pass time and let off steam. And overall, his teammates had barely reacted to his coming out as gay, at least not to his face. Everybody just had too many stresses and too many problems of their own.

But he hadn’t needed to hear any of that.

He sat tapping the steering wheel, staring vacantly through the windshield. 

He reached forward and pushed the talk button on his Bluetooth system, then disconnected it when the voice activation asked him what number he wished to call.

He brought his hand back to his side.

He didn’t have to call Holden and prove anything to himself. They’d spoken already today and it was almost eleven. On a Monday night Holden was probably already burrowed in bed fast asleep.

 _Alone,_ his mind kindly supplied for him as he started up the ignition. _He’s asleep in bed alone._

~*~

The best cure for a hangover, he had quickly discovered for himself, was large amounts of work.

So he had been unraveling a trail of work emails for the week. Sean was playing in Cleveland and he had sent him a text telling him some terrible fabrications about the quarterback for the Browns. He’d received a hot little text in response, and it had made the sickly sensations in his stomach feel a little better. Less than an hour later he had switched over to Safari and had started googling instead.

He searched phrases that had been swimming in his head. _Coping with separation_ got him results about divorces. Of no use to him. _Relationships with NFL players_ got him a bunch of random hits about the NFL itself. Then he tried _being an NFL spouse_ and got news reports variously about charities, cheating, and what a lack of privacy was actually like. 

About ready to move on, he came upon a page about which NFL players had the hottest wives or girlfriends. He looked through some of the pictures. He could hold his own against any of those ladies… 

He sighed and pushed aside his laptop and picked up his phone, tapping open his photo gallery.

He had some really good pictures in there, though his favorites were the ones of Sean laying naked with the sheets folded around him. He got those only when they’d ended up in bed in the middle of the day, since he wasn’t an early riser. They were taken from above, with him straddling Sean. He thought he might like those the best. He stroked his fingers over Sean’s burning gaze into the camera.

Going up one gallery, he smiled as he saw that there the pictures were mostly of the two of them smooching each other’s faces, or with their heads smushed together and smiling into the camera. 

Then he found one perfect portrait he had taken of Sean’s grinning face. He brought up the phone and pressed one long, hard kiss to it. And then started when it suddenly vibrated in his hands. 

Grimacing, he pulled it down, then sighed to see his mother’s number on the screen. 

He steeled himself and answered.

~*~


	4. Chapter 4

Why on earth his father hadn’t called himself was beyond him. He was over trying to figure out his parents’ dynamics and had simply acknowledged receipt when his mother had called.

She had also been calling to ask about the wedding.

Knowing that there was nothing he could do to prevent her doing whatever she wanted, he said fine when she informed him that she and Alastair planned on doing a _thing,_ a day before the rehearsal dinner. As he himself didn’t know on what date he was getting married, he hadn’t quibbled over the details.

But since his parents worked in tandem and never against each other, he couldn’t imagine what else his father had to add.

Nodding to the manager on duty at the front desk of the Bel Air country club, the manager welcomed and waved through to the club’s corporate section, where his father’s philanthropy consultancy offices were situated. He entered the hallway and found himself standing unmoving at one end. He took a lungful of air, then went ahead and knocked. Without waiting for an answer, he entered.

Waiting until he had shut the door behind him, he said, “Why didn’t you just call yourself like a normal person?”

His father looked up from behind his desk where he was standing, and blinked. “Holden, you haven’t returned a single phone call I’ve made to you in the past seven weeks. How much patience do you think I have?”

He dropped his gaze, looking away. “You made five phone calls in seven weeks. I don’t think that’s that much.” 

His father was silent.

When he looked, his father was leaning over his desk, ignoring him. He seemed to be looking for something. 

He watched as Alastair thumbed through a stack of cards until he found the one he wanted and shoved it across the table, bringing it to a stop at the edge.

He moved closer despite himself and glanced down at the square of expensive stock paper under his father’s fingertip. It was a plain business card.

His father lifted his finger and he saw the words. _Dr. Harold Markham, Ph.D._ He lifted his eyes, eying his father. He waited to hear how this was going to sound.

“Friend of a friend. Specializes in separations. Military families mostly, but it’s more or less the same thing. He can do whatever’s required of him. I told him you’re coming.”

The words cascaded into a black hole.

He was so angry he couldn’t think.

He straightened from the table, leaving the card where it was, and turned back to the door.

“Holden, stop it. I know what being separated from him is doing to you.”

He turned around in astonishment. “You don’t know _anything,_ ” he said, truly bewildered. “How could you know anything?”

“I’ve never seen you like this,” his father said, looking him up and down, his eyes, despite what he would personally like to believe, missing nothing. “I’d like to help.”

“Your _spite_ isn’t helpful.”

His father straightened and looked carefully at him. He felt his heart do something annoying. Sean said he looked so much like his father. And that pissed him off. It pissed him off also because he couldn’t stop doing this. Couldn’t just stop coming back at Alastair’s beck and call and getting his strings pulled.

“How can you call this spite?” his father asked, looking just as confused.

“We’re not having problems,” he said emphatically. “As much as you’d like to think otherwise, it’s the truth. We talk nightly. He’s a nice guy. He’s not fucking around on me. Please, stop this.”

Without waiting for an answer, he opened the door and left.

~*~

He raised his eyes from Elliot’s text and peered ahead to see that the long trail of red taillights, snaking up to the mansion at the top of the road, still had not moved. 

People complained that Bel Air was all secret hedges and winding roads, yet everyone was perfectly fine with dealing with Mount Olympus craziness.

He resumed his reply to Elliot informing him that he was stuck in line for valet. Then he tossed aside the phone and dropped his head against the headrest, thinking perhaps he should have come later when the crush had subsided. How many people could there possibly be at one person’s house party? 

Suddenly a loud rap sounded at his driver side window, making him start. He sat up to see Elliot waving at him in the darkness and reached forward to press the window button. Then he saw a man in black trousers and a white polo shirt reaching for the door handle. Elliot, bless his resourcefulness, had brought the valet. 

He gratefully got out, collecting the ticket from the fast-moving valet, who threw him a “Have a good evening sir,” and slipped into his car. Seconds later his Lexus was barreling around the cars and up the wrong side of the road, flying up to the gated entrance at the top of the hill.

He turned to Elliot’s grinning face. “How’d you get here so fast?”

“I couldn’t risk having you turning around and leaving, so I paid the guy, and now you owe me a fifty,” Elliot said, taking his arm. Then he threw him a coy look. “Well don’t _you_ look _beautiful._ If only he could see you now.”

“Don’t,” he pleaded, stuffing the ticket into his jacket as they began walking up to the estate. “Unless you want me to start drinking from here.”

“Now, now.”

“I really don’t know about this, Elliot. I’m not sure I should be out tonight.”

“Forget Daddy Warbucks for one night and just relax. You shouldn’t be home alone sulking.”

“Am I insane to be this upset?” he asked, turning to look at his friend.

“Watch your step, sweetie.”

“How could he do such a thing?”

“Just try and put it behind you. It’s his first time being philanthropic to his own son. So he sucks at it, big deal.”

“It’s so…intrusive.”

“He loves you to pieces. You’re his only child. He’d cuff himself to you if he could.”

“Oh, that’s what I need to hear.”

Elliot laughed. “Okay, so look. I’m not saying to go get wasted or anything, but we’re gonna be outnumbered three to one by assholes tonight, so you’re going to have to be extra vigilant about not getting dragged off into the men’s room.”

“Just perfect. And why am I here again?”

Elliot smiled. “Because Petey needs emotional support.”

He grimaced, knowing exactly what that meant.

~*~

He wanted to call Holden.

But for some reason he was nervous. And felt like a jerk.

“Sean, you coming?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, looking up long enough to nod to James heading into the game footage review room.

It was ten after ten. He knew Holden would be out for the night, possibly just trying to keep himself distracted for the night until he got back.

_Possibly not._

He stared at the open phone screen on his phone, then after long seconds of indecision tapped closed the screen. He went into the session.

~*~

It was some Hollywood director’s party. The guy had just made some blockbuster—his many of manys. The kind of movies that made Sean zone out.

Though he hated seeming like part of the Gay Establishment and all the silliness that sometimes entailed, it was in fact what they all were, and with the important things, like the events of this summer, came the trivial. Like the house party of a slimy—

“There they are!”

He smiled and lifted a hand as Petey pointed a finger at them. Glancing around, he saw that Craig was nowhere to be seen. 

He also noted, to his slight discomfort—he wouldn’t quite call it terror—that on this side of the house it was all glass, on all three floors. The house was located right into the Hollywood hillside. And what was worse, the pool, where half the party guests were already milling around in skimpy bathing suits and trunks, was an infinity pool, situated right on the edge of the property, supported by stone pillars. He quelled his queasy sensations, turning his gaze from it while knowing he would be expected at some point in the night to be out there partying.

And the decor of the house itself, one of those cutting edge ultramodern things, actually made Sean’s place look like some quaint little villa in Provence.

He would start the drinking right about now, please. He sighed, turning back to his friends. The things he did from misery.

Petey, standing next to a slightly ruffled guy whose eyes were red rimmed and roaming the room, was beaming.

_Ah._

“Holden, you remember Bryan. Bryan, Holden.”

Of course he did. Hence Elliot’s declaration of Petey’s need for emotional support. 

Bryan took one final look around the room before deigning to spare him a look. His eyes were intense, preoccupied. “Hey, man, how’s it going?”

He didn’t bother responding. Petey was handing him a drink and he gratefully took it.

“You guys are all in suits,” Bryan said. “Maybe I should have worn a suit. Now I feel slightly awkward.”

He took a sip of his martini—blueberry, he noted ecstatically—and scanned the living room for where he should next be headed to ensure survival of this party. 

Petey, who in a classic-fit Perry Ellis suit looked like one of those dark-haired, liquid-eyed male models, was lovingly telling Bryan that he looked perfectly fine.

He saw Craig, looking cool and collected as ever, who waved and pointed toward the sliding doors. He nodded.

“You’re uh…” Bryan said, narrowing his eyes, his focus now crystalizing on him. He did his best not to show any interest. It would not take much for him to start speaking his thoughts. “You’re the guy that’s with, uh— You’re dating Sean Jackson aren’t you?”

“They’re actually engaged to be married now,” Petey said, and he had to hide his smile at Petey’s pointed tone.

Bryan’s attention hadn’t wavered from him. “What’s _that_ like?”

“What’s _what_ like?” he questioned.

“He really came out of the closet ‘cause he wanted you to stay?” Bryan said almost harshly, not seeming to care that his tone had been less than friendly. “That’s kind of amazing, actually.”

“Why is that amazing?” Petey asked, an edge to his voice, and he had to keep from spraying his drink. Why on earth Petey thought this kook was the new love of his life was beyond him. 

“Gay people come out all the time,” Petey elucidated. “For all sorts of reasons.”

“Well, it _is,_ because—” Bryan turned to him, intensely. “Isn’t that just, like, an all-access life? I mean, between your money, and his— I mean, he’s a fucking superstar. I mean, that must just be—” Bryan stopped, perhaps just now noticing Petey’s equally intense burning glare. “I’ll-I’ll stop. I don’t mean to sound like a dick. You’re not mad at me, are you, Peters? C’mon,” he purred. “Say you’re not mad. Can I get you anything?”

Petey at least rolled his eyes, but he was flushing, and trying not to look flattered. And Bryan was smiling at him.

Elliot was reactionless, as was he. 

Today, because it was an exclusive party, it was fawning. Tomorrow, when Bryan was feeling a little more sober, and realized he wasn’t supposed to be gay, it would be veiled taunts, possibly followed by the details of the hot fucking he had receive from some actress tonight who couldn’t get enough of his cock.

It reminded him so much of what Sean had said to him on one of their first dates, after he had left his number with Sean’s publicist and Sean had refused to give him a call. Sean had said he had felt that calling him didn’t make sense, when he hadn’t seemed all that interested in him at the fundraiser. 

He remembered Sean’s exact words, “I’ve had a lot of weird experiences with men,” and wondered that he had never asked Sean what those experiences had been.

Now he was kind of glad he hadn’t, because the thought of Sean’s heart being knocked around by an idiot just like Bryan… He stopped his thoughts cold, pressing his lips tight while taking a steadying breath.

In Sean’s case, that idiot had been him.

He looked into his martini glass. It was empty. 

Through the glass walls he saw Craig outside talking to a group of people. He needed to get outside, the possibility of death by falling off a hillside notwithstanding.

Elliot followed his gaze. “Petey,” he smoothly said. “We’re going to head on outside.” He smiled just as effortlessly at Bryan. “It was nice seeing you again, Bryan. You look…” Elliot let his voice trail off, his smile still intact. “Good,” Elliot finished, as if deciding on a course of action.

They headed out into the open air.

~*~

There were people screaming and jumping into the pool. Half the guests were famous actors and the other half were the usual party fillers.

It wasn’t that he detested Hollywood parties, it was more that everyone presumed you were in the business, and that you liked to do the things that they liked to do. The idea of “normal” people in L.A., who were from here and just worked and went home, was beyond them. Therefore not being “into” what they were “into” was always a challenge.

And they all seemed to talk animatedly, and at very high notes.

He sighed, missing Sean’s quiet warmth so badly that he was now on his third martini. Everything seemed to remind him that he wanted something that was currently out of his reach.

Forget scouring football fansites, there were presently copies of Sports Illustrated in his nightstand he had to make sure no one ever saw.

“It’s not stalking if it’s your fiancé,” Craig was saying gently to him, lounging beside him on a chaise. Elliot and Petey were somewhere inside. It was Craig’s turn on babysitting duties. “It’s not even his real Facebook page. Just a PR thing.”

He made a face. “Trust me, it’s stalking.”

“Hi there. This seat taken?”

“Yeah,” Craig said apologetically, looking up at the dripping wet, impossibly beautiful hunk hovering over them, wearing nothing but tiny swim trunks. And they were D&Gs.

He could always tell those.

He shifted his eyes. Not because he was even a little bit tempted to go off with some other guy, but because any guy he saw now seemed to remind him of the one he could not have.

“Sorry,” Craig said, and the guy smiled, shrugged, and left.

“Was that guy famous?” he asked, trying to cover his thoughts.

“No, they just sit.”

Elliot broke from the group he was talking to at the other side of the pool—way too close to the edge for him to look at for too long—and came over.

“How’re we doing?” he asked interestedly. 

“I’d say we’re doing all right,” Craig said.

“Excellent,” Elliot replied, taking a seat just as Petey walked up behind him.

“Has anyone seen Bryan?” Petey asked fretfully.

“You mean your opportunist boyfriend?”

Petey narrowed his eyes at Craig, who had spoken. “He’s not opportunistic,” Petey said, sitting down, “just…”

“Ambitious? Eager? Overreaching?”

“Note we did not deny the boyfriend part,” Elliot added.

“I don’t think he’s gay,” Petey said flatly, sounding more like he wished to keep his hopes down than to convince himself.

“When was the last time you had a straight guy follow you into a spa?” Craig asked.

“He doesn’t have a lot of money! He wanted to spend the day at the Roosevelt and he knew I was going there, so he came with me. It doesn’t mean he’s gay. He’s just insecure and comes off as…ingratiating sometimes.”

“And feels you up whenever the mood strikes him,” Craig finished.

“He’s felt you up?” he asked sitting up. He wondered what else he had missed in the summer. “Where? I mean, what part of you?”

“He touched his cock,” Craig said.

“It was by accident!”

“In a luxury jacuzzi.” Elliot laughed in genuine amusement. “It’s a sweet gig if you can get it.”

“Why is everyone all over him? He’s a sweet guy. And Holden’s didn’t admit he was gay, either. I don’t remember anyone given Holden lip about it.”

“Whoa, whoa,” he said. “Sean wasn’t going around shoving women in my face. You think I would have put up with that?”

“He spent his whole adult life pretending to be straight!”

“No, he did not. And certainly not to me. Sean never even dated women in college. How many of us can say that? He made a choice to make his profession his life, and everyone else just made the assumptions.”

“But isn’t that the same thing?” Petey asked.

“What, as going around saying you’re fucking women when you’re actually in saunas groping guys?” Elliot asked. “No, I’d say it wasn’t the same thing.”

“The issue isn’t whether he’s gay, straight or bi,” Craig said. “The issue is that he’s an asshole.”

“That’s it exactly,” he said to Petey, catching and holding his eyes. “Because Sean never played games with me. Never. That’s not what love is. That’s not even close to what—” He stopped. His voice had given out. 

He looked away, at the ground, and swore.

“Aww,” Petey cooed, moving closer to sit next to him on the chaise and rub his thigh. “I didn’t mean to bring stuff up. Here,” Petey was waving over a server and plucking up a glass. “Have something nice…”

“No!” Elliot cried.

But it was too late. He had taken it, and he could smell the oblivion the alcohol promised, and he had sipped it before Elliot was done waving at him.

Elliot sighed, Craig said he’d see them later and left, and Petey got another glass for himself.

~*~

The director was using his hands to tell a story that was supposedly amazing, and everybody in their group was squealing appropriately with delight and he wished he could take in a single word.

He did, however, take in that the director’s alarmingly young boyfriend was making subtle motions at him in the universal language of trouble.

Even though he was certainly drunk, he was standing next to Craig, who was doing an excellent job of running interference, and was feeling very good about pretending not to notice the director’s boyfriend. He thought the boy was actually doing very good himself, seeing as the party decidedly had gone into more…service-oriented directions.

Just as he was congratulating himself on having dulled his pain, his phone vibrated violently against his leg. He looked down at it.

Not only did he have to stop putting that thing on vibrate, he had to put it on a setting that didn’t quite startle him so much every time.

Craig turned and looked at him. “Are you going to get that?”

He held out his drink to Craig, who took it, and used both hands to fish out the phone, knowing exactly who it was.

He looked up from the flashing numbers a little helplessly up at Craig. Craig looked questioningly at him.

“I’ve been drunk every time he’s called,” he whispered. “I don’t think I’m making a good impression.”

“Just let it go to voicemail.”

“I don’t want it to,” he said softly. “Do you mind?”

Craig shrugged and took the phone. 

“Hi, Sean?”

There was complete silence.

“Are you there?” Craig said.

“Yeah…?” 

He heard it loud and clear. Sean’s guarded, defensive tone.

_Oh…fuck._

“This is a friend of Holden’s.”

There was more intense silence. Craig waited as if on hold with the phone company. 

Then Sean said something that was hard to hear.

“No, he’s fine,” Craig answered. “He’s just had a little too much to drink. He’s right here but he’ll probably have to call you in the morning.”

He closed his eyes. That just did not sound right.

“Not a problem,” Craig was saying, easily. “I’ll let him know.”

Craig pulled the phone from his ear and tapped the end call button.

“I think you’re good,” he said, handing him the phone.

~*~

He hung up, and sat staring speechless at his phone.

~*~

He took the phone from Craig and stared at it. “Maybe I should call back,” he said to Craig.

“It’s up to you.”

Elliot showed up, looking done. “Ready to head out, H?” Then he looked from him to Craig, and back to him. “Hullo?”

“Holden’s worried that Sean might think something bad’s happened.”

Elliot looked again from Craig to him in confusion. He turned over his phone, pointing at the completed call.

Elliot blinked a few times, quickly putting together what had happened. 

“You answered his phone?” he asked Craig. Craig shrugged, told him he hadn’t wanted it to go to voicemail. “Are you serious right now?” Elliot asked. “You answered his phone and told his fiancé he’s out getting too wasted to talk to him?”

Craig raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. “Now that you put it that way…”

He was watching Elliot’s expression. If Elliot was going to freak out, he was going to call Sean right back.

Elliot stood, frozen for moments, and then relaxed and took a deep breath. 

“I doubt it’s anything to worry about, Holden, you’ve been wasted every time he’s talked to you. I’m sure he gets it by now that you’re just missing him.”

“A-are you sure?”

“No, but…he’s hung in there for almost four years. I don’t think one phone call is going to make that much of a difference.”

~*~

Elliot was pulling off his shoes one by one while he laid on his back on the bed in Elliot’s guest bedroom, staring up at the ceiling.

He was remembering the summer, the FRC fight, and Sean staying with him. He’d turned off all the things that could ring in his condo and had told the front desk not to let anything, for any reason, disturb the guest upstairs while he was at work during the day. He’d ordered fresh fruits and vegetables every couple of days, because Sean did that while he was at home, and couldn’t while he was holed up away from the howling media. 

They’d shared his bed, he’d cooked breakfast for Sean every morning, and…he had felt like a good person. Like a _lover,_ as well a partner. He had taken care of Sean just like normal couples took care of each other.

And now he was alone. And he would be alone again this time next year, and the year after that.

“I think I have an anxiety disorder,” he said aloud into the darkened room.

Elliot snorted. “You’re just lovesick.”

He nodded slowly. Elliot had had a couple of rough patches. He would know.

“But I don’t think I realized how much I’d _need_ him. You know how you just take it for granted and when it’s not there you feel like it’s all you can think about?”

“Uh huh.”

He sighed. “Maybe I should go see him.”

“You could do that.”

“But I can’t,” he whispered mostly to himself. “If I went now I’d never, ever come back.”

“I’m sure it gets easier.”

He thought about it. “I talked to a woman at the party whose boyfriend is a flight supervisor for Delta airlines,” he said. “I asked her how she copes with him being gone all the time and she said they got used to it. It’s hard at first, very much an adjustment, but that you got used to it.” He thought hard at the ceiling. “I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want to get used to being apart from him.”

Elliot stood at the end of the bed, holding up his shoe. “Was it the sex? The reason you guys can’t see each other.”

He nodded.

“Was it getting in the way of him playing football?”

He nodded again.

“Well, how much damn sex were you guys having?”

“A lot.”

“Well then, it’s just a passing thing. It’s always hot and heavy in the beginning. You’re not going to be going at it like rabbits for the rest of your lives, or for the rest of his football career. This time next season, you’ll be sitting in the Fox Sky Box being a bitchy NFL wife. You won’t even remember any of this.”

“I guess. But it sure doesn’t help me this year.” He sighed. “I wish I were like Petey.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do. Petey falls in love so many times he doesn’t even know to get upset when things turn out totally insane.”

“Petey’s version of love is like what happens on a theme park ride. The crazier the better. That’s the opposite of what you want.”

He shook his head. “Why the hell does Craig put up with it?”

Elliot sat down heavily next to him on the bed. “Why the hell did Sean put up with you?”

He sighed, trailing his fingers over his eyes. “Life is so fucked up sometimes.” 

Thankfully, he could feel himself falling asleep.

He heard Elliot wishing him a good night as he quietly left the room.

~*~

That Sunday afternoon Sean turned it up on the Dallas Cowboys.

Nobody knew what hit them. Even he was riveted, tagging the week’s work emails and watching highlight videos out of the corner of his eye. 

Sean looked so focused that it was hard to look away from him. He cringed, however, watching Sean bark at his teammates, apparently not willing to let them have even a little slack. 

He hoped Sean wasn’t mad at him. Sean did look kind of pissed off.

Which was all fine, as badly-timed phone calls aside, he had decided to stop drinking.

Sean’s focus on what he had to get done had made him realize that he had to get his act together as well. He decided he was no longer going to run from his state of sorrow. 

Apart from not being able to handle the hangovers, he was being left with too many residual feelings of loss than not. So he was going to learn to deal, because this was the life he had chosen. 

It was the least he owed Sean in terms of support.

~*~


	5. Chapter 5

His hands were shaking. Only faintly, but he could see it. And more important, he could feel it.

What was so fucking hard about this? All he had to do was tap the phone icon and hit Holden’s number and he’d be talking to Holden in no time. Listening to his unruffled, untroubled outlook on life.

Instead he looked up and caught sight once again of the photos he had been looking at on his laptop.

They were lined top to bottom, and filled the page. At the top it said _Getty Images,_ with the name of the event next to it. This one was the LACMA midnight fundraiser, taken just a few weeks ago. There were other picture galleries, but this was the one he kept coming back to.

He looked at Holden’s smiling face, at the happiness that was shining so vividly from his eyes. There were other people around him— Alastair, Cecelia…and then the others. Some of their faces he recognized, others were new. 

But what he was feeling was not.

Frustration. Shame. That feeling of trying to get someone who was unattainable.

He closed his eyes and could so easily see it. Sitting in his car on the curb of Wilshire Boulevard, watching his faith in so many things, true love and a personal connection, his sense of his self-confidence, disappear with each of Holden’s new and successively more attractive overnight guests.

He was being plagued by a thought. That he had rushed to put a ring on Holden’s finger so that he could spare himself the humiliation of facing his feelings. So that he could feel that he had won.

It was as if nothing in the past year had happened.

He set down his phone and sat forward with his head in his hands. He was not over it. 

He was over none of it.

~*~

Sean mostly texted now.

He supposed it was as a result of the tremendous amount of pressure on him, as the games starting December were piling on to the postseason. So on the rare occasions when they did talk, he stuck to listening carefully to the little Sean said, and to telling him how proud he was of him, and how much he missed him.

Sean would mostly give him quiet grunts, as though his words were caught somewhere inside him. And though it sometimes left him with a nagging feeling, he kept his thoughts to himself and focused on not creating complications.

“I love you, Holden,” Sean would sometimes say, before disconnecting, and it would make his heart pound. It sounded too much like a goodbye he wasn’t aware they were having, and he sometimes wouldn’t be able to respond. But it was just a bad time of year to be talking to an NFL quarterback, and he conducted himself accordingly.

December was also a heavy charity month for the teams. He sat on long flights looking at picture of Sean on the web at Chargers charity events. He meant to keep track of the types of events Sean was used to attending with the team, in an effort to fit a pattern to his foundation’s future work, but within minutes he started noticing that a lot of the pictures were of Sean with little kids. Little five year olds gripping footballs that were too big for them and Sean grinning down at them like his whole world had lit up.

It had come as a surprise to him that the teams did so much charity work, from blood and toy and food drives to picking days to run soup kitchens. But more than anything it made him see that Sean did seem to have a genuine weakness for kids. He felt bad for having been so flippant when Sean had gotten excited seeing him with that little boy during training camp. 

Sean had mentioned to him that he had hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for his teammates this year. Perhaps next year they could do a dinner instead for families with children.

He closed his laptop, stowing it as the announcement came over the speaker that they were preparing for landing. The woman fast asleep next to him remained so, and he checked that she hadn’t removed her seatbelt and hadn’t let back her seat either. She’d be okay for landing. He pushed the button bringing up his own seatback, thinking that this time next year a lot of things might be different.

He hadn’t discussed his withdrawal from the social scene with his friends, but they hadn’t stressed him about it either. Craig he saw regularly at work, Elliot called often to make sure that he was okay, and Petey, once a week on Sundays, kept him from taking things too seriously.

And besides the travel, those were his activities now. He was counting down the days. It would not be much longer now.

~*~

And so it was’t until the week before Christmas, on a Friday night while watching Sean on ESPN, that he got any kind of an inkling that something was wrong.

It was Hannah Storm doing the interview, which was mainly the reason he was watching it in the first place. It was the first time she had interviewed Sean since calling him a has-been back in February and taunting him to retire.

Sean was handling her admirably, he thought, not rising to any specific baits and more or less keeping it the usual boring football talk. He had been contemplating putting the interview on mute while he went ahead and did other stuff—either that or shoot himself—but he hadn’t wanted to miss the sound of Sean’s voice and had kept it on.

He had zoned out once more when upon near conclusion of the interview Hannah asked, “One last question, Sean. Do you believe in history repeating itself?”

Sean stopped and flicked her a look.

Dead seconds filled the airwaves.

Sean had frozen, looking at her as though he had somehow been caught thinking something he shouldn’t be.

Hannah’s eyes narrowed a fraction. 

And all of a sudden he was clutching his cushion. Sean wasn’t answering the question.

Sean said, casually, “What do you mean by that, Hannah?”

Hannah began looking as though she realized she might have something.

Sean’s eyes flew over her head, as if someone off-stage had signaled to him. He looked back at her.

Hannah began to smile. Smoothly, she rephrased the question.

He pulled the cushion into his lap. It was the oversized one that always smelled of Sean. He pressed it against his lips and stared blankly at the TV screen. The studio lights seemed to be getting brighter, the chrome shiner. Sean blinked, then gave an evasive answer.

Hannah pressed again, but by this time Sean seemed to have regained his equilibrium and told her they had no intention of repeating last season’s divisional loss, if that was what she was asking. 

He was convinced Sean was being honest. That look hadn’t been about the season.

He watched the rest of the interview, which didn’t last much longer, carefully watching for any other aberrations in Sean’s demeanor. He found none. Sean just scratched his temple and looked down a bit more than usual.

When it was over he gathered his courage and reached for his phone. Sliding it to the unlock position, he dialed Sean’s number.

~*~

“When did I say I was thinking about retiring?!”

“You mean before she asked you the question, or after you didn’t respond?”

“Paula, I am not up to being teased right now.”

“Who's teasing?”

“What Paula means,” Kara interjected, her voice low and calm, “is there was a lot of reading between the lines going on when you were asked certain things.”

“Like what though?”

“It wasn’t anything specific you said,” Kara explained, continuing to leave him baffled. “It wasn’t so much that as…the pauses. Which weren’t a lot. And might not mean anything to anyone who doesn’t know you.”

“Exactly,” Paula said. “And Sean, a lot of people know you as a pretty straightforward guy.” She paused. “Unfortunately, you did not come off as straightforward in that interview.”

“What the hell did I come off as?”

“Like you had something to hide,” Kara said flatly. 

He pressed his fingertips into his eyes, leaned his hip against the hood of his car. Kara’s job in this dynamic was to soothe his pains. When _she_ was sounding like Paula, he knew he was fucked.

“What have I got to hide?” he said tiredly.

“That’s why we’re on the phone right now.”

“Ladies, I got nothing to hide. It was rhetorical. I don’t know what everyone’s seeing, I mean I got a lot on my mind, seeing as we’re coming into the postseason and all, but I sure as heck am not planning on retiring anytime soon.”

“It’s all we wanna hear,” Paula said with finality. “All right, Sean, take it easy. Have a good game Sunday. You call me if you have any problems.”

“Bye, Sean.”

And with that, his publicist and his agent hung up. He was left staring at his phone.

He yanked the earbuds from his ears and swore as he tossed them into the driver’s seat of the Navigator. And then his phone started ringing.

It was Holden’s ringtone.

Well, here it was.

He tapped the answer button, exhaled hard, and brought the phone up to his ear.

~*~

Come Christmas evening, he was at a dinner party with his parents, and within a minute of being there he knew he shouldn’t have come.

Everyone had seen the clip, of course. It was getting more hits on YouTube than videos showing celebrities actually doing nonsense. Even people who didn’t care about football were googling it just to see a famous person have an awkward moment on live TV.

He himself couldn’t have cared less about what was going on on the internet. But for days following the interview he had wracked his brain thinking of what “history” possibly repeating itself that could have robbed Sean of his composure like that. It had taken him longer than it should have.

He should have known it when he had had to field all those phone calls back in November, when Sean had been acting so crazy. Being apart for a few weeks shouldn’t have caused such an extreme reaction in anyone—physical needs aside—and certainly not in a guy who had spent half their relationship talking to him on the phone, never mind having succeeded in putting a ring on his finger.

And there, once he had thought it through, lay his answer. Sean had been acting like someone afraid to lose something if he didn’t save it at that moment. But for the life of him he did not know what.

What did Sean think he was going to lose, him? It didn’t make any sense. Granted he had spent November getting drunk and acting like a lunatic, and maybe he shouldn’t have let Craig answer his phone that night, but drunken behavior wasn’t the kind of thing that was enough to make Sean doubt their relationship. They’d certainly been through worse. 

The only other thing he had been able to think of, in terms of history between them, had been his having other relationships whenever Sean had been gone for the season. But when he used to do that they had been broken up every time. And Sean had expressed his discomfort and even anger over it, and they had dealt with it. 

What more could it be?

The night after the interview when he'd talked to Sean, Sean had said everyone was reacting strangely. He’d worried that it was going to be tough dealing with the guys on the field the next day because they were going to think he had some kind of problem he wasn’t telling them about that was going to affect his game.

So all he had said in response, all he _could_ say in response, was that it had only looked like there had been something on his mind, and that he was sure his teammates knew he didn’t have an agenda. 

It had been a brief phone conversation.

And now, while piling mashed potatoes on his plate, he could only pretend he wasn’t seeing his father’s eyes following his every move. He was shaken and frightened, and felt as though he was standing on a sheet of ice so thin he could already hear it creaking.

Afterward, when the guests had retired around the drawing rooms, and he had become tired of doing an impression of a wallflower holding a glass of hot cider, he gave up trying to avoid the inevitable and waited in resignation for his father to come to him. 

His father didn’t come alone. 

With him was a friendly looking man in a patterned shirt.

The man looked nothing like a shrink.

~*~

The Chargers played the Cincinnati Bengals and won, and then went down to Tennessee on Christmas Day and there defeated the Titans.

Both games were decimations. The Chargers games had become the ones to watch. He watched neither broadcast, but bundled up on a cold December 26th and watched the highlight shows at Elliot’s condo in West Hollywood.

And then Elliot wouldn’t let him be alone for the rest of the holiday week, so he packed up a bag and followed him to Sāo Paulo, Brazil, where Elliot escaped to every year and guaranteed him that he wouldn’t think of home for seventy-two hours.

He didn’t think of home, but he never stopped thinking of Sean. 

~*~


	6. Chapter 6

He sat up in bed, pushing the covers off slowly, and sat for a long time running his hand through his hair.

He was in a fucking bad place.

He looked up and around the hotel room, turning to look out the window at the lights of downtown Indianapolis. It was Saturday, January 16th, the night before the AFC Championship Game.

A year ago he would have given anything to be here. For the second time in his career he had proven the football world wrong. He had brought his team all the way to be the four last teams to the Super Bowl, on thirteen straight wins against fifteen teams. They had won their division against the Broncos, the Chiefs, and the Raiders, and were boasting one of the best records in the league. There’d be brand new endorsements and more money for Paula.

At this time he should have been either overconfidently ecstatic, fighting to keep it together, or in a state of calm determination. He was none of the above. 

He just had a job to do like on every other game day. And at least on the field he felt he had some kind of control over his destiny. 

It was the times between that were the problem.

He heard Allison telling him what he had told Marcellus earlier on in the season, that you had to keep your eye on the things you had control over.

Well, the situation with Marcellus’s girl had not worked out.

He sighed, stood up and went back over to the writing desk, where he had left out his playbooks and notepads. Tonight he hadn’t called Holden. He didn’t want to do that anymore. Didn’t want to make it seem as though Holden was the problem. Holden wasn’t the problem.

And yet he was trying not to think of the things he couldn’t let go and why.

He phone started to ring. He picked it up and looked at the caller. It was Hiddiger.

“Sean, what’re you doing?”

He trapped the phone with his shoulder, shoving folders into his duffle. “Just takin’ it easy.”

“A bunch of us are heading down to the lobby for a nightcap. They got the best goddamned hot chocolate you ever tasted, and we wanted to know if you were up for that. It’s the end of the season, man, you could put whatever junk you like into your system and it wouldn’t make a difference.”

He chuckled. Hot chocolate pretty much was all that they were allowed to have. That, and a whole lot of team camaraderie. “How’s their water?” he asked.

“Even better.”

“I’ll be right there.”

~*~

The Chargers lost the championship game.

Football fans, however, were given a show to remember.

He ended up watching the game at Kate Hazeltine’s, scarfing game-day junk food with her son, her parents and a whole bunch of her friends.

On Christmas Day, when he had called to wish her a happy holiday season and to see how she was doing she had screamed to hear his voice. Then she had screamed some more in telling him how _fucking amazing_ Sean was doing, and then had insisted that he get his butt up to her house and watch the championship game with them if he didn’t already have plans.

He hadn’t any plans, so he told her he could definitely be there. She’d screamed some more while he laughed, almost having forgotten how infectious a personality she could be once she opened up. And so that was how he found himself driving out to the Valley on a cold Sunday afternoon in mid-January.

As he found a place to park on the tree-lined street, struggling with the bouquet he had brought her, he couldn’t believe it was happening. The season was finally coming to a close and it was a heart-thudding possibility that this time tomorrow he might be tearing the clothes off his not-so-secret crush.

He tamed the bouquet and reached out to push the doorbell, and started laughing when the door flew open. Kate’s huge smile lit up the entry way. He smiled, leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. Then he extended the bouquet and wished her a happy new year. She took the bouquet, took one look at him and said, “Are you okay?”

He blinked, confusedly shook his head. “I-I haven’t—”

She rolled her eyes. “Guy, it’s me.”

He made a face, shook his head. “I just miss him.”

“ _Mommieee, you’re missing the cheerleaders!_ ”

She frowned comically. He waved a hand. “It’s nothing. It’s a party, I’m not here to do this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“All right, come on in.”

She limped backward with her cane, making room for him to enter the foyer. He entered and smiled at her, her hair up in a high pony tail and a contended, blissful smile on her face as she closed the door. “Well, _you_ look very nice,” he said, and her smile got even wider.

“I’m _very_ happy.”

“ _Mommiiieeee!_ ”

She grinned and swept an arm. “Let’s…go get some dip!

She introduced to him to her family and her friends, who were all very nice, and to her son who seemed to recall exactly who he was. 

He was blond and blue eyed. He made himself stop staring when he realized that that was what a son from Sean would probably look like.

He concentrated really hard on the game after that.

The Chargers lost 47-46 in overtime, and Sean had pretty much lead his team to battle. Even he who knew next to nothing about watching football knew it had been a brutal game.

He had watched, his heart in his throat, as Sean got pulverized, bashed, and taken down like the guys on the other team were on a mission, and springing up from the pileups like he had a lot more of that were that came from.

At some point in the third quarter Sean shoved off a heap of grunting, writhing men to emerge from one of the pileups with blood all over his face.

He managed not to show his nauseated reaction, especially since everyone around him was howling and screaming with excitement, and simply watched as the camera followed Sean to the sidelines, the commentators sounding no different from the people around him. Team medics were rushing up to Sean, endeavoring to clean him up while he barked and made coded gestures at people, mic’d and not seeming to care one bit. It was a good thing Sean wasn’t the type to swear a lot. Once the last piece of bandage was on his face he dropped his water bottle and yanked back on his helmet and flew back onto the field, to the applause of screaming fans.

It was definitely a game to remember. The Chargers had come off a lackluster seasoner opener, the commentators were yelling euphorically—no thanks to him, he thought nervously— and had held in there till the bitter end on the sheer will of a quarterback who wouldn’t quit, but here was the end.

Everyone, in the stadium and around him, was on their feet cheering and applauding, and it took him a moment to realize that the Chargers hadn’t won. 

When it was over he stood up and smiled and hugged along with everyone else and his stunned expression was by no means put on.

He couldn’t believe it was over, and that Sean was coming home.

Less than an hour later he was saying his goodbyes and heading back into the city.

But not to his place, except to pick up some stuff. He was going home to Sean’s house in Malibu. 

Yup, he was done kidding himself about everything when it came to Sean. Wherever the man wanted to be was where everyone else could find him, and it was only the prospect of sleeping on Sean’s sheets that could bring him any thoughts of peace enough to sleep tonight.

And he did sleep soundly, because he knew that tomorrow before he had finished having breakfast, Sean would come home.

~*~

And then he had, and Sean did. And he put his arms around him and held him so tight that Sean was grunting to catch his breath, and even then he didn't know how to let go.

~*~

Sean was covered in bruises.

Livid, purple and blue and even violet blotches that he had forgotten all about, forgotten what it was like to see the next morning after the final game of the season. No, he hadn’t forgotten, had only chosen to not remember what it was like that first time after Sean returned, or the other times when he had chosen to keep away until after a week had passed, or more.

They were all memories that were coming back to him, as he trailed his fingers down Sean’s body, over his collar bone, his pecs and his stomach, snatches of rationalizations he had had with himself when he hadn’t wanted to deal, hadn’t wanted to believe that what he had with this man whom he had so decidedly met on a whim, was real. He gasped, sitting back as Sean sat up and wrapped arms around his back, groaning deeply against his throat and digging his fingers so painfully, _Oh God,_ so divinely into his shoulders, electrifying him as he moved his hips, slipping his grip on Sean’s wet hips, trying to hold on against the full, hard thrusts filling him deeply, mercilessly.

He brushed his fingers back and then forth against Sean’s face, watching to capture the moment in which they returned to each other. Sean gasped, his expression tight, his eyes full of so many things. And then he was pulling him closer, holding him fast, and he was touching his arms, feeling his presence, and soon they were doing the same thing with as much desperation with their tongues, the stress, the noise, the pressures of the football season, all finally over. He gasped freely as his orgasm built to a point, relishing the moment of coming apart on Sean’s sweet, dependable, and unflagging love.

~*~

_Part 6: Breathe, You'll Be Fine_


End file.
